Government seeks views on potential barriers to pooling health and social care budgets

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched a call for evidence to seek opinions on changes to section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 to increase the use of pooled budgets to support the integration of health and care.

In the UK Government’s health and social care integration whitepaper, it committed to review section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 to support further use of pooled budgets.

Pooled budgets are principally delivered through two sets of provisions in the NHS Act 2006. Firstly, the joint working and pooled fund arrangements under sections 65Z5 and 65Z6 (inserted by section 71 of the Health and Care Act 2022).

Secondly, the provisions relating to arrangements between NHS bodies and local authorities under section 75, which is the route through which the Better Care Fund (BCF) is delivered.

The BCF is one of government’s key levers for integration; 94 percent of local areas (an area being an integrated care board (ICB) and their partnering local authority’s health and wellbeing boards) agreed that joint working had improved as a result of the BCF in 2021 to 2022.

However, DHSC notes that current arrangements to pool budgets can be complex, which can hinder more ambitious models of integration. The government is considering simplifying and updating the underlying regulations where necessary.

Now, it wants views on whether the scope of section 75 should be widened to include additional health-related functions of local authorities and NHS bodies; additional public health functions delegated to local authorities and NHS bodies by the Secretary of State; and a wider range of organisations that can enter into arrangements under section 75.

The call for evidence also seeks opinions on any perceived barriers to pooling of budgets and whether the regulations could be simplified to facilitate easier use and reduce the administrative burden on NHS bodies and local authorities.

Additionally, DHSC wants to find out how it could strengthen and/or simplify the governance of section 75 arrangements to further support the commissioning of integrated care services.

The call for evidence closes at 11:59pm on 31 October 2023. Respond to it online here.